A Rotherhithe Blog

This blog is all about the Rotherhithe, past and present. The main themes are heritage, wildlife and news items that may be of interest to local residents. If you have any questions or would like to comment or ask me to cover any particular topic you can email me at andie [at] rotherhitheblog.co.uk. I am also on Twitter @AndieByrnes

Monday, July 13, 2015

Yesterday's post reporting damage to the Lavender Pump House is followed by some better news today. A number of residents are pulling together to discuss measures to prevent the continued deterioration of the historic building, and to find ways to save it for the future. There is now a website with a blog dedicated to the task, and a Facebook page where people can join in the discussion.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

The Lavender Pump House is one of the few surviving pieces of Rotherhithe's dockland buildings. It was constructed in 1928-9 to house the pump machinery that regulated the levels throughout the complex dock system which, until the pump house was built, fluctuated considerably. The building itself is lovely, a really attractive 1920s building with tall windows, full of light, with its original round Port of London Authority plaque commemorating the building date still in place on its Thames-facing side. Surrounded by a small wildlife park with a remnant of dockland water at its front, it was always one of the nicest ways of presenting Rotherhithe's past, peaceful, appealing and full of charm. I covered its history in a previous post, and expressed concerns about its future back in 2013, in a post about local heritage under threat, when I realized that the Pump House was not a listed building.

The Pumphouse Today.
Photograph by Steve Cornish

The interior was stripped out many years ago and some of the original machinery is preserved at the Brunel Museum. For many years the Pump House was a museum and included a local history display. When this very sadly closed, the future of the building, in the ownership of Southwark Borough Council, became a real concern. It was used by a local business for storage for a while, which kept it safe, but when the rental on the building was raised they left. Lacking new tenants, the building was next occupied by squatters who were eventually removed. Then, following a suggestion that the building could be converted to use as a gym in association with the Hilton Hotel, the council placed security guards to protect it. However the plans were cancelled and in the last few months the security has no longer been in place. The property was rented out to Sands Film Studios, but this was not enough to prevent squatters realizing that 24 hour security was no longer in place, and they entered the premises on the first night that Sands locked up. So the Pump House has again been occupied by squatters for several weeks, and were only evicted by court order in the last few days.

Steve Cornish has been into the Pump House to see what it looks like, and the mess is substantial. I've posted two of his photographs. Remembering what the interior was like when it was still a museum, this is just so sad. The graffiti is of course superficial but Steve has been told that the internal wiring had been removed along with some of the internal fixtures and fittings. He contacted English Heritage last year and were very worried about the last set of squatters trashing the internal fixtures and fittings, which might well invalidate the possibility of receiving listed status.

It seems clear that if the Lavender Pump House is to be saved from becoming a casualty of Southwark Council's ambitions to redevelop every inch of Rotherhithe for blocks of flats, local people will have to watch for planning applications and fight to keep this valuable piece of local heritage. Other possible casualties are the red crane on the Thames Path near Surrey Docks Farm, and a number of pubs that have been bought out by developers and have also been occupied by squatters.

To finish on a more positive note (again news provided by Steve)
residents around the Pump House noticed that the water levels in
Lavender pond were at critical levels, posing a threat to the local
wildlife, so they asked the London Fire Brigade if they could help in
any way. The London Fire Brigade sent out five Engines and spent all
afternoon pumping much needed water into the pond. They are now keen to
request a personal bore hole for the nature reserve that pumps up fresh
underground aquifer water in the nature reserves pond in an attempt to
eradicate this potentially massive environmental problem.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

The Clipper is a 1930s building on Rotherhithe Street and until recently it was a really nice pub with a great atmosphere and some lovely people on both sides of the bar. It was open all day, served excellent food, hosted events and darts matches and had some great live bands and themed parties at Halloween, Christmas, New Year's Eve and Burns Night. And it was a great place to relax, a stone's throw from the Thames Path. The brewery bought out the landlord and since then two planning applications have been submitted, both intending to replace the pub with blocks of flats, removing yet another community resource in Rotherhithe. Local residents have successfully defeated both planning applications and there is now a campaign to save the pub. The Save The Clipper campaign has its own Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/groups/savetheclipper/?fref=nf, where people have been adding their good memories about the pub going back many years. They are hoping to add many more members to demonstrate our support for the survival of one of the few surviving pubs in Rotherhithe so please join up if you would like to see The Clipper saved.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

"Rotherhithe." Etching and drypoint.Composed at the Angel Inn 1860.Victoria and Albert Museum CAI-139

This post is a departure from my usual focus on historic Rotherhithe buildings, ships that were built here up until the end of the 19th Century and very recent fluffy cygnets. I have a real passion for modern art so it is a great pleasure to be able to post about a very brilliant 19th Century artist and the paintings he did of Rotherhithe and this part of the Thames.

James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) was a superb American-born painter who, although probably best known for his wonderful oils, also produced remarkable etchings and drypoints. The Whistler Etchings Project describes him as a "controversial figure in the Victorian art world . . . both an influential and outspoken artist, and a meticulous hard-working craftsman." He learned to etch as a U.S. Navy cartographer but went to Paris in 1855 to train as an artist where he was heavily influenced by Gustav Courbet, other realist painters and newly imported Japanese print work as well as Charles Meryo's etchings of the less obviously scenic parts of Paris. In 1859 he decided to move to London, where he experimented with new subjects and styles. His hope was to attract patrons amongst the wealthy ship builders and merchants whose exotic cargoes came into the Port of London from the east.

Shortly after his arrival in London Whistler began a series of etchings and drypoints that captured life on the Thames. Whistler acquired accommodation in Wapping for two months so that he could get to know the river in person. Between 1859 and 1861 he made sixteen etchings of Rotherhithe and from Rotherhithe towards Wapping, which became known as "The Thames Set." These demonstrate his consummate skill as a draftsman and his ability to pick out the essentials of life using a minimalist approach. Quite apart from their artistic merit, they are considered to be a singularly useful record of the Thames riverside in the process of transition. Instead of focusing exclusively on pretty scenes, of which there were
plenty along the Thames, Whistler was particularly interested in the
working life of the river, showing the influence of Meryo's own
interests but bringing to them his own rather more sparse, direct and
less convoluted style. His focus in these images combines a
reductionist linearity with which he managed to convey an almost
photographic type of realism. People familiar with his more
atmospheric, intense and
Japanese-influenced later works may be surprised at the impact of some
these compositions.

Whistler used etching and drypoint techniques used to create prints. There's an excellent description on the Hunterian Museum's website at http://etchings.arts.gla.ac.uk/exhibition, and rather than attempt to paraphrase it, I've simply copied it here:

Whistler with his etching press(Copyright the Hunterian Gallery)

A thin copper plate was heated, covered with a thin acid-resistant ground, and smoked to produce a shiny black surface. Whistler drew with steel etching needles, which scratched bright copper lines through the ground. Etching is an intaglio process (from the Italian intagliare, 'to incise.') The incised lines were etched with nitric acid diluted with water, which bit down into the exposed lines.

After washing the plate, Whistler checked for scratches and mistakes. Then he could heat the plate, hammer out mistakes, and start again, using 'stopping-out varnish' to protect satisfactory areas. He also worked in drypoint, drawing directly on the plate with a needle, which threw up a metal ridge or 'burr'. Additions and changes were made in etching or drypoint. Each change produced a new 'state' of the etching.

The plate was cleaned, warmed, and dabbed with brown or black printer's ink. Surface ink was wiped off, leaving ink in the etched lines or drypoint burr. The plate, placed on damped paper, was pulled under pressure through the printing press.

The printed image appeared in reverse as fine dark lines. An indent (the plate mark), shows where the plate pressed into the paper. The first prints from a plate are often called proofs; all prints are known as impressions. A set of etchings, limited in number, could be published as an edition, by artist or dealer.

When enough impressions had been pulled from a plate, it was cancelled by drypoint lines or acid, and some impressions printed to prove that it had been cancelled. In a very few cases the plate was later restored and reprinted by other printers. . . .

The printed image appears as fine brown or black lines on the paper. A slight indent (the 'plate mark') appears round the edge, where the copper plate pressed into the paper. The scene appears in reverse on the paper. Since Whistler usually drew on site, from nature, his views are reversed. He had to write his signature back to front on the plate for it to be readable.

The first prints pulled from a plate are called proofs. Each print is known as an impression; and a defined number of impressions may be printed from any plate

Whistler developed new techniques to add texture and variation in his etchings and drypoints, eventually moving towards using drypoint alone, and found that different papers had an impact on the way in which his works appeared when printed. As a collection both the etchings and the pure drypoints are remarkable. STYLE. These were painted early in his career and are remarkable for their strength and energy.

Little Wapping. From the Angel Inn. 1861.Fitzwilliam Museum P283-1954

Whistler's first Thames etchings date from 1858 until 1871 and the Rotherhithe and Wapping etchings are notable for their focus on local subject matter - barges loaded with cargo, and lines of sailing shipped moored up along the river, local working men, busy riverside scenes, and wharf-side buildings. Unlike some of his more glamorous Thames oil paintings, these are all about the unadorned reality of the working river, and the monochrome textures of his brush strokes complement his subject matter beautifully. Writers on the subject of the Thames Set have a habit of talking about the decrepit and decaying buildings that Whistler depicted, but I wonder if he saw them that way. There's nothing dying about the world he captured - everything is full of life and immediacy. Whistler captured moments in time, but he did so in a way that collectively endured as a visual narrative of life along the Pool of London.

One of Whistler's favourite spots for these remarkable Thames scenes was
the Angel Inn at 101 Bermondsey Wall East, Rotherhithe, SE16 4NB (The Angel was covered in an earlier post). To ensure that they had maximum impact he kept the etchings concealed until they were published in 1871 as A Series of Sixteen Etchings of Scenes on the Thames (which subsequently became known as The Thames Set). They were a great financial
success for Whistler. Many of them were later displayed at an exhibition called simply The Works of James Whistler, Etchings and Drypoints
in 1874. The Hunterian Art Gallery in Glasgow has a project to explore
Whister's etchings and has identified over 9000 impressions of them
worldwide. In the UK there are examples at London's Victoria and Albert
Museum, the Fitzwilliam in
Cambridge and, of course, the Hunterian. The Hunterian has a collection
of both his prints and the original copper plates on which they were
made.

The picture at the top of the page is the most famous of the Thames Set. It was originally composed in 1860 and shows the Thames from the vantage point of the balcony of the Angel. Whistler used the same vantage point for his oil paintings Wapping and The Thames in Ice. It is possible to pick out the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral through the rigging of the ship to the left of the composition.

The Little Pool, 1871, Fitzwilliam Museum

Another etching and drypoint, printed on old Dutch laid paper, was The Little Pool, which also produced in 1861 (see right) and was used as an announcement card for Whistler's 1861
exhibition. The men in top-hats are thought to show Whistler working in the company of the gallery's owner and it is thought to have been composed on a pier along the Bermondsey wall. Between the barges and the rigged ships are rowing boats moving across the river. The intense dark colour of the figures and the ships in the distance contrast with the lighter and less detailed barges and the lone figure in the foreground. The sense of immediacy, a moment captured in time, is emphasised by the figures and the rowing boats, but there is a timelessness about the motionless ships and barges, a real sense of an unchanging world that was, however, an illusion. Although Whistler rarely showed steam ships in his etchings and paintings, preferring to show a less industrialized world, steam ships were a fixture on the Thames at this time. When Whistler was etching and painting, the world was changing and ships were changing dramatically at the same time.

The second etching from the top of the page, with the caption Little Wapping was done in 1861 and is again thought to have been done from the Angel, facing upriver. It is a rather more static scene than some of the other Thames examples and even though there are figures in rowing boats and lightermen are shifting the barge in the foreground, there is a sense of things at rest. Note the ships moored down the centre of the river, dividing it effectively into two navigational channels.

Longshore Men 1859, possibly at The Angel Inn

To the left is the etching Longshore Men. It may have shown a scene in the Angel Inn, because this was a favourite haunt of Whistler's but it could have been another pub in the Rotherhithe or Wapping area too. Whistler was often not specific about the geographical details of his subject matter. Longshore men were casual labourers who worked the river and its wharves. They are often shown in his paintings of general activity on the river, but here they make up the subject matter. Like all of Whistler's etchings they are a mixture of detail and impressionistic suggestion of shape provided by a few lines. This is one of the best examples of how Whistler achieved ranges of tone and texture by the skilled build up of individual lines. They way in which one of the characters looks straight out of the painting gives it an almost photographic sense of a moment caught in time. In the background a woman and her child give the scene a rather more domestic air than might be expected in a Thames-side establishment.

Steven's Barge Builders, Rotherhithe, 1859

One of Whistler's more impressionistic etchings was Stevens' Boat Yard, done in 1859. William Henry Stevens was a barge and small boat builder located at 40 Rotherhithe Street. It is particularly nice to have a scene that shows a local business, and it gives a good idea of what the Thames at Rotherhithe would have looked like before the wooden elements were lost forever. The scene shows three boys in the foreground next to a barge, various distinctive buildings along the Thames at the right, one of the multiple small boats that crossed the Thames all the time and, in the far distance, ships moored down the centre of the river.

The photograph below, from the superb book "On The River" (reviewed on this blog in an earlier post) shows a photograph of the Angel Public House. It's not that much different from the scenes that Whistler was painting nearly a century earlier.

Here are some of the artist's impressions shown in the above documentation. My initial reaction was dubious surprise. Now I have I seen the artist's impressions and I believe that it will be incredibly noisy as the sound of screaming kids carries over the water, and that the shower blocks will be incredibly ugly. Around 10 years ago the Watersports Centre erected a crane and ran bungie jumping from it - incredibly loud and intrusive and seriously annoying. That was refused permission to set up on a permanent basis because it was so anti-social and I don't see this being any better and any less anti-social. I live opposite the Watersports Centre and this plan really doesn't make me a happy bunny.

It's not exactly heritage-friendly either, and will spoil not only the peace of the dock but its appearance too.

It's not exactly a sympathetic use of a major piece of Rotherhithe's heritage. The image below shows an aeriel view. The pink dot marks the Moby Dick pub, and the blue rectangle is the proposed swimming pool. It really is quite enormous.

In so far as traffic is concerned, I am concerned about the impact on the one-way system and Jamaica Road. In addition, it will probably cause parking problems for the residents of the area surrounding the Watersports Centre, as there is an amazing amount of new residential building going up there at the moment, which will put additional stress on both the roads and the parking situation (the Planning statement says that all homes being built have their own dedicated parking - but what about home owners with more than one car?).

The planning statement says that it will accommodate children between the hours of 10am and 6pm but will be open earlier and later than these times for adult usage. They say that "it will be a great sight within an already amazing dock." Quite how that shower block translates into "a great sight" I have no idea.

And anyway, does Rotherhithe need a swimming pool with Seven Islands and its big pool literally just down the road? And what impact will this have on what I have heard is the promise of an eight lane Olympic style swimming pool and aqua centre in the soon to be announced masterplan vision from British Land?

Thursday, May 14, 2015

Sorry that the photograph of the swan is so over-exposed. I was using a camera that I haven't used for a couple of years. It's a toss-it-in-my-handbag sized one as opposed to my usual enormous SLR, because I was going out to lunch at the time and didn't want to haul extra baggage with me. Unfortunately I had forgotten how to use the wretched thing, so I could see that the shot was over-exposed but couldn't remember how to change the exposure to re-take the shot. As it was pouring with rain and I was trying to take the photos whilst holding my brolly in a more or less vertical position without taking off in the wind, it was all a bit of a lost cause! Even Photoshop couldn't help after the fact.

Shared a pizza marinara with a friend at the Canada Water Cafe - authentic and absolutely scrumptious. The cafe was packed and it was only 1220. Great to see a local business doing so well. Now if we could only get a couple of decent restaurants too!

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

The Surrey Docks Farm is one of our best local facilities for adults and children alike. Their Spring Fair is one of the biggest events that they put on throughout the year. It’s always a great family day out with loads of fun on offer. By popular demand they will be holding live sheep shearing demonstrations throughout the day, which should be brilliant.

Here are some of the day's activities

BBQ chill, and grill.

Fun for all the family, young and old.

Local food stalls.

Live sheep shearing throughout the day.

Surrey Docks Farm produce.

Mangalitza pigs – ever seen one? We have four!

Bottle fed lambs and lots of baby animals.

No need to book - just go to the Farm on the day. Entry is Free to all and they are open from 11am.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Having checked out the swans in the old lock at the top end of Greenland Dock a couple of weeks ago, tending to their unhatched eggs (pic below) I was so glad to see that seven of them have hatched and are doing a wonderful job of negotiating the waters around their nest. Both parents were in attendance, and the little family looked as though they were doing very well.

A couple of weeks ago

Today

There was also coot nesting in a rather strange corner of a neighbouring pontoon, the main part of which featured a number of abandoned unhatched small eggs.

There were a number of grebes around, but all appeared to be single, and there were numerous juvenile seagulls around.

At the top of the dock there were a pair of crows scavenging in the mud at the edge of the Thames, one of whom took the opportunity to enjoy a very muddy bath.

On the way back, crossing the old cut that lead into Norway Pond (now the Lakes), there was another coot settled on a very sad attempt at a nest. There was plenty of nesting material floating nearby so hopefully that will become a rather more robust effort soon.

Walking back down Greenland Dock I passed a set of photographers apparently gathered with their gear. According the staff at the Moby Dick pub they were taking pics for a brochure for the new development over the road. Very dull! I was expecting something far more exciting when I saw them there :-).

Monday, May 11, 2015

Rotherhithe was a major ship-building centre from at least the 17th
Century until the late 19th Century. The superb shipbuilding heritage of
Rotherhithe is often forgotten, but it was the main industry in
Rotherhithe for 150 years and defined the Rotherhithe peninsula
during that time. The fact that its shipbuilding heritage has vanished
so completely from Rotherhithe's landscape and memory is so sad. There
are of course traces - inlets here and there along the Thames frontage that mark the places where
shipbuilding docks once operated, and the still intact Nelson Dock, where both naval and commercial ships were built for over a century. But
most of the story of Rotherhithe's shipbuilding past lies in the records
that remain of ships built along the foreshore, their careers, the
people who served on them, the battles in which they served and the
places with which they traded. With England at war throughout much of the 18th Century, all parts of the country were impacted, and it is easy to forget that war and warships were front-line activities for London shipbuilders.

HMS Taunton is one of a handful of 17th Century ships built in Rotherhithe of which I have been able to find a record. She was the first warship known for certain to have been constructed at Rotherhithe and was launched by William Castle in 1654 and lasted for a truly impressive 65 years, seeing considerable naval action during her lifetime. Brothers William and Robert Castle appear to have been well established by the time that Taunton
was built. HMS Taunton is the first of their ships to be recorded in Rotherhithe, but others were also built at the yard including three 8-gun yachts, Monmouth, Navy and Kitchen in 1666, 1666 and 1670 respectively, a 25-gun fireship called Griffin in 1690 and the 10-gun ketch Hart in 1691. The exact location for the shipyard remains elusive. The Castle Shipbreaking site has this to say on the subject:

The first we learn of the Castles occupying land on the Thames at Rotherhithe is from a map belonging to the Earl of Salisbury dated 1610. The exact location of the Yard is not easy to pinpoint but it is known to be a shipbuilding facility which William Castell was operating. Most of the land shown on the map is located to the east of the Neckinger thus placing it fairly close to the site of the well-known Cherry Garden Stairs. It is certainly clear that the family were probably active in the shipping business during the late Elizabethan era.

Research has shown that William Castle was born in 1590 and was probably responsible for building up the business at the Rotherhithe site. His father John who may have negotiated the terms of the tenancy in the early 1600s more likely achieved the acquisition of the site.

HMS Taunton or HMS Dover, both built byWilliam Castle

This description is consistent with the 1600s maps of Rotherhithe (see, for example, the Blome 1673 map at the top of this page), which show all the Thames frontage activity at Rotherhithe village or upriver from it; downriver there appears to be very little activity at that time.

The Castles were well attested in
records of the time, and are mentioned several
times in the diaries of Samuel Pepys, who considered William Castle to
be an expert in the production of 3rd Rate ships of the line. Although
perhaps most famous for his diaries, Samuel Pepys was Chief Secretary to the Admiralty, and his
opinion mattered. William Castle's warships were characterized by the unusual feature of
having one more port on the upper deck than the lower deck. The Castles were deeply embedded in the London
shipping scene, and very well connected. William
Castle married the daughter of Sir William Batten, Surveyor of the
Navy. For more about the Castle shipbuilding and breaking family see
the Castles History Project website.

HMS Taunton was originally designed as a 40-gun two-deck 4th-rate 545-ton full-rigged frigate, a ship of the line built in 1654, three years after the end of the English Civil War, a year into the Protectorate under Oliver Cromwell and a year after the outbreak of the First Dutch War. She was one of the ships ordered in the "Thirty Ships Programme" issued by the parliament in 1652. HMS Taunton was 104ft long (measured along the keel), with a
31ft 8in beam and a hold depth of 13ft. She cost £3484 (according the the National Archives Currency Converter, in 1650, £3,484 0s 0d would have the same spending worth of 2005's £263,251.04). Like most ships
of her time she was modified during her career, with alterations that
significantly changed her vital statistics. Ships are often described in terms of the classes to which they
belonged, a designation that refers to specific designs made by often
famous ship designers, and Taunton was a Ruby Class ship. The first Ruby Class ship was
HMS Ruby, built by Peter Pett II in Deptford in 1651. Taunton was the ninth of the Ruby Class Fourth Rates. The model of her above is a photograph from Riff Winfield's "British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603-1714" and is probably either HMS Taunton or HMS Dover. It shows an additional port on the upper deck mentioned above, a characteristic of William Castle's warships.

This painting is actually from 100 years after Taunton was sunk and shows the Battle of Chesapeake, but is a useful illustration of how ships engaged in the line of battle

The First Dutch War was fought mainly with small ships, with only 11 out
of 103 having ships of over 50 guns. Most had between 30 and 44 guns.
Ships of the line were rated from 1 (the biggest, most prestigious, heavily armed
and expensive, but also the most ponderous and least manoeuvrable) to 4 (5th and 6th rates were never used as ships of the line). The rating system was based on the number of men that a ship could hold. Ships of the line all had the same basic job, which was to present arms in the so-called the line of battle. As with many land battles, this was a tactic of open confrontation. Warships on opposing sides lined up from bow to stern to present their broadside guns to each other. The first single-deck frigates built in Britain were constructed in the 1640s in response to a need for smaller, faster ships, but were found to be too small to accommodate sufficient men for battle conditions and in the late 1640s and early 50s some were given an extra deck. After the First Dutch War it was determined that larger ships were far more advantageous
in battle, and in the future bigger and stronger ships were commissioned
which were better able to withstand the stresses of battle and were
more difficult to board.

The Battle of the Texel, 11–21 August 1673 by Willem van de Velde I

The Protectorate lasted until 1959, when it was dissolved, but the commonwealth only lasted another year and in 1660 the monarchy was restored to power under Charles II. Presumably in celebration, Taunton was renamed HMS Crown. Under her new name HMS Crown participated in a number of placements and engagements, listed by Riff Winfield in "British Warships in the Age of Sail 1603-1714" as follows, under a number of different commanders. I've listed them just to show how a warship of the period was deployed:

With Sandwich's squadron at Tangier 1661

With Lawson's squardon in the Mediterranean in 1662

With Allin's squadron in the Mediterranean in 1665

At the Four Days Battle in 1666, with 8 killed and 15 wounded

At the Battle of Solebay in 1672

At the Battle of Schoonveld 1673

At the Battle of Texel, also in 1673

In the Mediterranean 1674

In the Mediterraneqan in 1680

In home waters in 1685

In the Turkey convoy in 1687

Rebuilt at Woolwich in 1689

By 1666 she had been fitted with a further eight guns to take her up to a total of 48 and was manned by a crew of 170. She was rebuilt again in 1689. In 1704 following the outbreak of war in 1702 she was refitted at Deptford by shipwright Fisher Harding, and relaunched as a 552 long tons 4th-rate ship of the line with 50 guns, again a fourth-rate ship of the line. She was 126ft 8in (measured along the gundeck) with a 34ft 5.5in beam and a hold of 13ft 6in (4.1m) deep. She was again full-rigged. She sailed from Deptford under Captain Thomas Lyell and again travelled widely under a number of different commanders:

In the North Sea 1704

In Barbados 1706

In 1708 with Baker's squadron on the Dutch coast

In the Channel 1709, and from there to Lisbon and then Jamaica in the same year

In Jamaica 1710

Back to England in 1711

In the Mediterranean in 1712

Major repair at Woolwich in 1717 costing £2007.

Recommissioned 1718

There is some confusion about who commanded HMS Taunton during
which periods. Different accounts from the period place different
commanders in charge of her simultaneously. It seems clear that she was
launched under Captain Richard Lyons and was soon under the command of
Captain Thomas Vallis when she was at Tunis with Blake's fleet in the
Mediterranean. She came under Lyons again in 1655, after which he
resigned and was than assigned once again to Blake's fleet under Capitan
Nathaniel Brown. She was back on the Thames in 1656 but was once again
under Blake, this time taking part in the Battle of Santa Cruz in
1657. She had numerous other commanders in her 65 year history, some of
whom are listed on the threedecks website.

HMS Crown was "bilged and sunk" (Riff Winfield 2009) on 21st January 1719 under St Julian’s Fort at the entrance to River Tagus in Portugal. At 65 years of age she had a long life, always a challenge for a wooden warship in active service. She was awarded battle honours, and had a successful and worthy career.

The Four Days Battle of 1666, in which Taunton (by then HMS Crown) took part. By Pieter Cornelisz van Soest.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Taking advantage of the late morning low tide yesterday, I took two friends down into the foreshore mud. They had never ventured onto the Thames foreshore before, and we had for a thoroughly enjoyable few hours fossicking around. We descended the stairs at the Surrey Docks Farm, crossed in front of Nelson's Dock at the Hilton Hotel (Cuckold's Point) and walked as far as the river would let us before climbing up the stairs at Columbia Wharf and walking to the Old Salt Quay for a bit of refreshment. After that we went for a potter along the foreshore at Hanover stairs, where the houseboat is moored, and where there were three Egyptian geese at the edge of the water, looking distinctly exotic and out of place. We went to look at the old ships timbers that still lie near Clarence Pier before going for a wander along the water's edge.

Having seen what people pull off the foreshore at Greenwich and much further upriver I know how spectacular and fascinating some of the finds can be, but Rotherhithe produces much more modest offerings. The nicest piece of the day was a beautifully decorated piece of clay pipe bowl, with what looks like a climbing rose on the bowl itself and a traditional leaf pattern along the seam.

We picked one piece of pipe stem that was marked with the word PLUMSTEAD. On the other side it reads very clearly H. DUDMAN. A bit of pootling around on Google reveals that the maker was one Henry Dudman of Plumstead, Surrey, who was manufacturing clay pipes in the 1800s. He lived at 71, Bloomfield Road, Plumstead, and pipe manufacturing was his livelihood.

The Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiacus) were lovely. Originally from sub-tropical Africa, they were introduced into English country estates in the 17th Century for their ornamental properties. Unsuited to the climate, they had a tough time surviving our winters, particularly as they breed in January, but eventually adapted and began to breed successfully. They settled in Norfolk and although I've never seen them before have apparently spread extensively into the London area following a population explosion due to milder winters and the survival of more chicks.

The Egyptian geese (Alopochen aegyptiacus)

We wandered by the side of Surrey Basin and through Russia Dock Woodland, which looked lovely in the sun. Huge thanks to Jeanette and Elaine for a great day.

The old path that crosses the muddy foreshore
to the former Cuckold's Point ferry

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Thomas Bilbe built Argonaut in 1866 with his partner William Perry. Bilbe was based at the Nelson Dock shipyard from 1850 until the late 1860s. It was one of Rotherhithe's biggest shipyards. As well as tea and wool clippers, Bilbe built a ship that was armed and
designed to operate in the illegal opium trade, he transported Chinese
coolies as cheap labour, and pioneered a new method of hull framing and
invented a mechanical slip, which he patented. The slip can still be
seen today immediately next to the Hilton Hotel's car park on
Rotherhithe Street, its engine house preserved immediately behind it,
facing onto Rotherhithe Street.

The site is now located within the grounds of the Hilton Hotel on Rotherhithe Street (today's postcode SE16 5HW - see the location on Streetmaps.co.uk) and is one of the few places in Rotherhithe to preserve any of the physical infrastructure of the area's shipbuilding past.The dry dock was incorporated into the hotel complex when the Scandic Crown Hotel first owned the site. It is the only one to be preserved on Rotherhithe. Bilbe's patented mechanized slip and the slip's engine house also survive to the west of the dry dock, also part of the Scandic Crown's original estate. The engine house was opened as a museum during the regeneration of Rotherhithe in the 1980s, but to as far as I know has not been open to the public in the last 20 years.

Nelson Dock in 1862, by Stuart Rankin from his 1996booklet "Shipbuilding in Rotherhithe - The Nelson Dockyard." Rotherhithe Local History Paper no.2.

Thomas Bilbe was a remarkable character, and I have said something about him on my earlier post about Wynaud. Other Bilbe ships that I have written about are Borealis,Orient,and Yatala. Thomas Bilbe was responsible, either on his own or with his business partner William Perry, for the construction in the 1860s of the clippers Orient, Florence Nightingale, Red Riding Hood, Whiteadder, Wynaud, Coonatto, Borealis, Yatala, and Argonautat Nelson Dock. Like William Walker, discussed on previous posts, Thomas Bilbe specialized in composite ships. His first composite was Red Riding Hood, and thereafter all his ships were composites, made of wood planking on an iron framework, a design that provided additional strength to the structure of a ship, and made much of the internal woodwork that had formerly been required redundant, providing additional room for cargo. Argonaut was built for Bilbe and Perry's own use, unlike some of their earlier ships, which had been built for the Orient Line. Clippers built in America and Britain in the earlier and mid 19th century had been constructed for the tea trade from China, and Argonaut was built for this trade. The Thames shipwright strike of the 1860s was one of the final nails in the coffin of Thames clipper building, diverting most of the new contracts to the Tyne and Clyde. The rising dominance of steam ships and the opening of the Suez Canal also doomed the age of commercial sail. Argonaut was the last of Bilbe and Perry ships, and William Walker's Lothair (launched in 1869, the year that the Suez Canal opened) was the last clipper to be built on Rotherhithe.

Argonaut

Argonaut had a net tonnage of 1073, was 206ft long, 33ft wide and 26ft deep. David R. MacGregor describes her as "sharp in the ends" with "a long floor." She had three masts and sported a magnificent set of sails and was fitted with two cannons for defence against pirates.

It was of critical importance to ship owners that their cargoes arrive at their destinations as soon as possible, because the first cargoes back earned the best prices. There was always, therefore, a race between the great sail clippers to return to port ahead of ships that were owned by competitors. Andrew Shewan described Argonaut as "a galloper" and commented that her first captain, Sandy Nicholson, who was her master for many years, was "noted as a sail carrier," meaning that he liked to deploy as much sail as possible for the prevailing conditions.

Argonaut on an Angry Sea. By Henry Scott

Argonaut's first voyage was to Foochow in China on a tea run. Leaving Foochow with her cargo of tea on 10th July 1867 she arrived back in 111 days, arriving in London on 29th October. It was an exceptional maiden voyage, only 8 days behind that of the famous Ariel and the same number of days as another well known fast ship, The Fiery Cross. In the following year she took 113 days to return from Shanghai to London improving her time in 1869 with a run of 109 days on the same route. MacGregor, in his book The Tea Clippers, says that in
1872 Captain Nicholson had "sailed through the dangerous Paracels on a moonlit
night and did not have to tack till of the Cochin China coast. The
Paracels were known to be dangerous, and had not been surveyed, and
taking them at night was a particularly risky short cut to the Java
Sea."

There's a great incident involving Argonaut that is described by Basil Lubbock in "The China Clippers," whilst she was in Shanghai. Lubbock explains that most clippers were equipped with an armory of hand weapons as well as two or more cannons that could be deployed both for defence against pirates, as well as ceremonial purposes:

Shanghai Bund in 1860. Peabody Essex Museum. Click to see full size.

Regarding the use of the cannon for saluting purposes, an amusing incident occurred in Shanghai in 1868. Several of the tea clippers were moored in the river, discharging, etc., before proceeding to Foochow, when the Leander, having finished, unmoored and towed to the sea. Her departure was signalised by a general solute from the other clippers present. And it so happened that just as the Argonaut fired one of her guns from the starboards side of the poop, a Chinese man-of-war junk happened to be sailing past. the wad, which had been made purpose hard of old rope in order to raise a loud report, went right through the junk's mainsail and landed on the quarter of another ship near by, knocking away some of the gilt carving on her stern. The men on the junk fell flat on the deck with fright when the gun went off, and it knocked a hole in her sail large enough to drag a wagon through.

Apparently the story did her a lot of good, because pirates operating in Chinese waters considered her to be a force to contend with!

I love the comment of Andrew Shewan about her ensign: "Everywhere the British Ensign waved supreme. It was sometimes worn at the peak, but more often on a flagstaff over the taff rail . . . . But it should be a full-sized ensign, not the insignificant mockery of a thing which some masters affected for economy's sake . . . the Argonaut, some three hundred tons bigger than the Norman Court, with a full poop and a long flagstaff, flew an ensign not much bigger than a large pocket handkerchief. It completely spoilt the appearance of the ship and looked ridiculous, like a cock robin perched on an elephant."

Bilbe and Perry had an agreement with Jardine Matheseon and Co in China for Argonaut. According to David R. MacGregor in his book The China Bird, Thomas Bilbe was one of the few sail ship owners and agents who understood that steamships were taking over at a terrifying speed from clippers, whilst many others maintained a blind optimism about the situation, even whilst steamers filled the Chinese harbours. He quotes a letter from Thomas Bilbe and Co to Jardine Matheson on July 29th 1870:

"We are duly in precept of your esteemed favour of the 2nd ulto and have perused it with grate interest, the state of matters as regards the loading of the teas ships is, oar rather will be we fear, pretty much as we have anticipated. In fact we will think ourselves well off in the face of the competition of you are able to get the Argonaut loaded at 30s with fair despatch. Of course we don't mean that such a rate pays, but only that we will look upon it as a fair get out under the circumstances."

Argonaut hove-to with her mainsails clewed up, waiting forthe arrival of a pilot. By James Burr. From David MacGregor's"The China Bird."

In
1873 Argonaut was involved in an unfortunate incident when under the command of Captain Nicholson. She was loaded with 1,465,000 cases of tea and left Foochow on
9th August 1973, headed for London. MacGregor tells a story with a less successful outcome than his earlier tale, which took place
in the following year: "In 1873, anxious to carry the somewhat
westerly monsoon for as long as possible, Nicholson kept on too long and
stranded on the Pescadores, being forced to jettison 300 tons of tea
before getting off." MacGregor concludes that episodes of this sort
"were frequent amongst the hard-driven ships." Even with the delay she made the trip in 111 days.

In 1874 her new commander, Captain Cameron, was only able to achieve the trip in 128 days. It was the end of her China career. Like so many tea clippers Argonaut was ousted from the China tea trade by the dominance of steam and the ability of steam ships to make use of the Suez Canal, which had opened in 1869. Steam ships, which at that time required refuelling
stations, were unable to cover the Australian route, giving the sailing ships a
last lease of life and an important role and many of the tea clippers were reassigned to the Australian wool trade.

In 1877 she was sold to Anderson, Anderson and Co (later the Orient line, which was eventually amalgamated into P+O). Bilbe
and Perry had built several successful ships for Anderson, Anderson and
Co. for the Australian trade, and this was added to their fleet. In 1883 Anderson, Anderson and Co. sold Argonaut to Jacob Brothers of London. They in
turn sold her to Jacob Brothers of London in 1883. Argonaut only survived another five years under Jacob Brothers. In 1888 she put in to Port Natal (Durban, South Africa), taking on water en route from western Australia to Hamburg. She was condemned, and her sailing life was over.

The photograph below shows Nelson Dock today. The barriers at its Thames end are painted with the name of one of its early 1900s owners, Mills and Knight, and is now filled with water and blocked off from the
Thames. Grade 2-listed, the Nelson Dock
passed into the ownership of the Hilton Hotel when the hotel
chain purchased the property from the Holiday Inn, which had purchased
the site from the group that owned the Scandic Crown. For several years, rather incongruously, it was fitted with a fountain, and still has an artificial heron and real water lilies. But it looks loved, and where heritage preservation is concerned, that's what is important. At the time of writing the Hilton Hotel is about to be upgraded to become a Doubletree, so it will be interesting to see what they do to the dock and to the patent slip and its engine house in the redevelopment process. It would be lovely if the former engine house museum were to be re-opened.